The Tom Toms

A poem by Violet Nicolson, Lawrence Hope, Adela Florence Cory Nicolson (1865 – 1904)

Dost thou hear the tom-toms throbbing,

Like a lonely lover sobbing

For the beauty that is robbing him of all his life’s delight?

Plaintive sounds, restrained, enthralling,

Seeking through the twilight falling

Something lost beyond recalling, in the darkness of the night.

Oh, my little, loved Firoza,

Come and nestle to me closer,

Where the golden-balled Mimosa makes a canopy above,

For the day, so hot and burning,

Dies away, and night, returning,

Sets thy lover’s spirit yearning for thy beauty and thy love.

Soon will come the rosy warning

Of the bright relentless morning,

When, thy soft caresses scorning, I shall leave thee in the shade.

All the day my work must chain me,

And its weary bonds restrain me,

For I may not re-attain thee till the light begins to fade.

But at length the long day endeth,

As the cool of night descendeth

His last strength thy lover spendeth in returning to thy breast,

Where beneath the Babul nightly,

While the planets shimmer whitely,

And the fire-flies glimmer brightly, thou shalt give him love and rest.

Far away, across the distance,

The quick-throbbing drums’ persistence

Shall resound, with soft insistence, in the pauses of delight,

Through the sequence of the hours,

While the starlight and the flowers

Consecrate this love of ours, in the Temple of the Night.

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Poems in English 

• The Jungle Flower by Adela Florence Nicolson
• The Hut by Adela Florence Nicolson
• The Hospital On The Shore by Adela Florence Nicolson
• The Garden Of Kama Kama The Indian Eros by Adela Florence Nicolson
• The Garden By The Bridge by Adela Florence Nicolson
• The First Wife by Adela Florence Nicolson
• The First Lover by Adela Florence Nicolson
• The Dying Prince by Adela Florence Nicolson
• The Convert by Adela Florence Nicolson
• The Cactus by Adela Florence Nicolson
• The Cactus Thicket by Adela Florence Nicolson
• The Bride by Adela Florence Nicolson
• The Aloe by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Syed Amir by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Surface Rights by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Surf Song by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Sunstroke by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Story Of Udaipore Told By Lalla Ji The Priest by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Story Of Lilavanti by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Story By Lalla Ji The Priest by Adela Florence Nicolson

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